Agenda 21 local

The people living in the gecekondu neighbourhood in the fifth phase of Dikmen Valley experienced the complex processes explored above. As noted above in Chapter 4, from the mid-1990s onwards, there were significant changes in the ways the project was implemented as a result of the changes in the local government. This was argued to have generated a shift in terms of the state’s approach to gecekondu communities and urban space. Muhurdaroglu (2005) evaluates this shift as the transformation from the rehabilitation project to a gentrification project referring to the increasing displacement of the gecekondu

communities from the area (p. 108). Turker-Devecigil (2005) also argues that after the local elections, the approach of the local state to the Dikmen Valley shifted from ‘an urban area to be rehabilitated’ to ‘a value to be shared’.

Her emphasis on such a radical change, however, disregards the continuity in the process that is the presence of profit-making purposes in the earlier stages of the project. Yet, it was apparent in the active involvement of the local state in the process. In line with the centralisation of urban governance, the greater municipality of Ankara prepared the Dikmen Valley Project and together with district municipalities established a joint stock company (Metropol Imar Co. Inc.) to carry out the redevelopment in the valley. Thus, it is more appropriate to argue that the profit-seeking motives became more manifest after the mid- 1990s.

After the municipal change in 1994, large-scale private construction companies were also included in the process; however, Metropol Imar A.S. remained active in terms of planning, consulting and undertaking the processes of urban redevelopment in the municipally designated areas not only in the valley but in the whole city. In contrast to the involvement of the state when it was too risky or expensive for the private sector so as to provide financial resources and gradually leave the process to the market forces in advanced countries; in Turkey, the local and national state actors involved in the process have acted like private agents with profit-seeking motives. The reason for preparing a special project and using a public-private partnership model rather than

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leaving the transformation process to the market forces through an

improvement plan in Dikmen Valley was argued to aim ‘guaranteeing the gains of the municipality and that of the private firms who would take part in the redevelopment process’ (Muhurdaroglu, 2005, p. 131).

The motive of appropriation of urban rents led to legal disputes between greater and district municipalities in the process of establishing the legal framework for urban transformation in Turkey. After the 1990s, the two local government units – Ankara Greater Municipality and Cankaya District

Municipality (which has been under control of the main opposition party) – were contradicting each other on the basis of appropriating the rental gains. As a result of the subsequent delays in the implementation process of the project in Dikmen Valley, only three-fifths of the project was completed by the time I started my fieldwork in 2015. After the enactment of the new law of

Metropolitan Municipalities (Law no. 5216) in 2004, by which, metropolitan municipalities gained planning authority at all scales, Dikmen Valley was immediately labelled as a municipal project area. Today, there is no single unit in the Cankaya District Municipality that takes part in the transformation process of the valley.

Since then, the greater municipality had been actively involved not only in the implementation of the project but also in the promotion of gentrification, which was the national urban policy, and criminalisation of resistance to it. It is argued that local governments in Turkey have been regarded as extension and agents of the central government (Heper, 1988 cited in Goymen, 2006, p. 246) to promulgate the ruling ideas, norms and the ideology (Ersoy, 1999, p. 77). Through ambitiously promoting the ‘necessity’ of the project in the municipal weekly bulletins and the criminalisation of the groups struggling in the valley, the greater municipality of Ankara was mimicking the broader promotion of obedience.

In 2006, the greater municipality unilaterally announced the 4th and 5th Phases of Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation Project, sending legal notice to the gecekondu people living in the neighbourhood to evacuate their houses and sign the agreement. When the project was announced there were 1,084

households holding title deed and 1,200 households without it (Deniz, 2010, p. 104 cited in Aykan, 2011, p. 29). For the title-deed holders, the contract offered

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two options: they could either sell their land for a unit price which was well below the market value or get housing from the valley, provided by the municipality under certain financial terms. Title-holders with 400 m2 _{of land}

would be provided with a house of 100 m2_{. If the land of the household was}

less than 400 m2 _{— which was the case for most — then it would pay a certain}

amount to be determined according to the cost of the houses of 100 m2 _{to be}

built in the valley for each missing unit. They would also get a rent allowance of 250 TL for two years. For that, they had to relinquish their houses and leave the valley as soon as they sign the contract (Aykan, 2011, p. 30).

The explanations that focus on the single logic of rent appropriation overlook the complex ways gentrification deals with multiplicity when reproducing the urban space for profit. The people without title deeds were not excluded unlike in the earlier phases, during which they were not accepted as right-holders in order to keep the construction density low in the valley, as it was to be transformed into a green area. As noted above, the people lacking title deeds were offered land from Dogukent project area (4.5 km away from Cankaya district, 11 km away from the city centre).

However, there was no infrastructure or built environment in Dogukent, yet. Not even the parcellation of the land was completed, and nobody could get information about where the exact area to be settled was. Moreover, they had to pay the price of the parcel of land without the housing on it, 16,000 TL, which was a very high level for low-income people, over 120 months in equal instalments (Aykan, 2011, p. 30).

Due to the uncertainties about the duration of the project and date of delivery of the promised houses, the low level of rent allowance and demolition costs, and high level of debts, the people were reluctant to sign the agreement with the local state. As noted above, politically active households came forward and initiated meetings to discuss what could be done against the project together. Progressively more people started to attend those meetings to be informed about the process.

On the other hand, almost all of the title-deed holders signed the contract and left the valley by the end of 2006. Against the other people’s refusal to evacuate the valley, the greater municipality cooperated with the local leaders such as the elected heads of the neighbourhoods to convince the remaining people to

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sign the contract. The pressure to demolish was very high; the municipality cars were touring the valley streets all day in a threatening manner.

Moreover, the municipality sent demolition teams and 5,300 policemen to the neighbourhood on 1st _{February in 2007 early in the morning. Although there}

was no demolition that day, the clashes with the police lasted all day. In the period following, people in increasing numbers left the valley either with great hopes of becoming a legal homeowner in the prestigious valley area or because they were scared of the idea of disobeying the state and advised by the local leaders to leave.

While realising the powers vested in itself the greater municipality effectively used its ‘power over time’ increasing anxiety in the community through continual delays in the project; hopes were raised and then lowered

(Sakızlıoğlu, 2013). It cut off municipal services of transportation and stopped maintaining roads in Dikmen Valley, brought stray dogs to the neighbourhood, poured garbage and rubble onto the roads in the neighbourhood (See figure 17), threatened the prominent figures in the struggle, and eventually sent socially unpopular groups such as Syrian asylum seekers and waste collectors to the neighbourhood in order to discourage people from living in the

neighbourhood.

Figure 17: Rubbish thrown on the roads of the gecekondu neighbourhood (Photo: Author, 08.02.2015)

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Along the lines of the shift in the state’s approach to the informal settlements, the greater municipality gave the people in the valley the message that with or without their support, the urban transformation project was going to be implemented. This indicated that gentrification-induced displacement was not only about being evicted from the neighbourhood and the succeeding loss of economic and social network, but also about the erosion of the claims to the right to use and appropriate the urban space, as reflected to the fragile claims of Ibo to his neighbourhood, referred to at the beginning of the chapter.

Nevertheless, the process was more complex as gentrification also came with promises of inclusion to the deserving citizenry alongside with the punitive measures for noncompliance. As referred in the beginning of Introduction Chapter, in one of the weekly bulletins of the greater municipality of Ankara dated November, 2011, the local state explained the gentrification and struggle process in the valley. The collective right to shelter struggle in Dikmen Valley was represented in it as ‘an illegal struggle led by particular marginal groups waiting for an opportunity for their ideological protests and to create tension’. The gecekondu people living in the valley were separated from these struggling groups and portrayed as ‘poor people in Dikmen Valley’, ‘the citizens who were cheated with disinformation’, and ‘the people who are unfortunately used as puppets of conflicting ideological groups’. The leftist figures who were actively involved in the process were seen as ‘provocateurs’, who had been spreading terror in the valley with the support of other organisations and some political party members for years, despite not being right holders.

Thus, the municipality refused to recognise people’s right to participate in the urban decision-making processes and associated their rights-based claims to the urban space with illegality and even terrorism. The gecekondu people in the valley were also ‘warned’ at the end of the article to use their last chance and follow the other gecekondu residents in different urban transformation project areas in Ankara, who had accepted the terms of the municipality. The bulletin reminded the valley people of the heavy legal penalties for preventing demolition. By using the threat of punishment and promises of obedience at the same time, the municipality tried to discipline the political activists in the valley.

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In the same bulletin, a second article with a more stigmatising and disciplining tone came in 2013. It was titled ‘Terror is once again active in Dikmen Valley’, and represented the opposition groups as militants, whose purpose was to provoke conflict, whereas the greater municipality had constantly come up with offers which represented its ‘good intentions’. It contained telephoto photographs of the clash between the valley people, who have sticks and stones in their hands and wear masks, and the subcontracted company workers, who were sent by the developer company to start demolishing the

gecekondu houses in the valley. The titles in the different pages of the bulletin were ‘Terror is active once again in Dikmen Valley’ (see Figure 18), ‘Is this a place out in the sticks?’, and ‘Terrorist protest in the heart of the capital with stones, sticks and weapons’ (Emphasis added).

According to the research participants, what happened was that a group of subcontracted workers of the construction company came to the

neighbourhood with weapons attacking residents in their attempt to empty the valley so that the implementation of the project would start. People I spoke to in the valley told me that the workers were brought in by police buses, and were armed and fired shots towards them. The valley people responded with sticks, stones and weapons ‘to defend their houses’ (with the participants’ own words). In the municipal bulletin, those people were represented as terrorists who injured the policemen and the journalists whereas there was no mention of the subcontracted workers carrying weapons. This absence was to

represent the struggling groups in the valley as innately unruly, and thus, legitimise the punitive measures for the sake of creating ideal that is ‘orderly’ city centres — as opposed to the disordered ‘places out in the sticks’ — through gentrification.

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Figure 18: A picture from the municipality’s weekly bulletin with a title of ‘Terror of

Gecekondu People DIKMEN WAR’ (Buyuksehir Ankara Bulletin, 19-26 March 2013)

Besides, it was once again emphasised in the bulletin that although the

gecekondu settlers had no rights on the land/house according to the law, the greater municipality of Ankara still offered them 200 m2 _{urban lands from}

Dogukent Boulevard. They were asked to pay 16.000 Turkish Liras but in instalments over 10 years. Alternatively, they were offered apartments from TOKI houses to be paid for in 15 years in two other parts of Ankara, both of which were tens of kilometres away from Dikmen Valley. Alongside

increasingly punitive approaches to the right to shelter struggle, the municipality highlighted the generosity of the benevolent state, which was ready to reward obedient participation despite the absence of legal right.

Moreover, in the bulletin, the Dogukent location was represented as one of the ‘rising attraction centres in Ankara’. The gecekondu populations were targeted to be removed from the valuable inner-city lands, but the promotion of the peripheral lands as attraction centres highlighted their ‘deservingness’ to live in valuable lands. This ‘inducement’ echoes Paton’s emphasis on the promotion of participation through promoting entrepreneurialism. The people lacking title deeds and struggling for their right to affordable housing were

encouraged to see the residential place as a source of investment rather than shelter, and think in ways that promote profit. By doing so, the rights-based language used by the struggling communities in the valley was trivialised.

Conclusion

This chapter analysed the promotion of gentrification in contemporary Turkey and the Dikmen Valley, focusing on the simultaneous presence of

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criminalisation and promotion of participation in the process. As a lately industrialised country, the local and national state was actively involved in the process of urban redevelopment especially in 2004 onwards. This was

commonly argued (by economic explanations of gentrification) to be related with the goal of appropriating the high levels of rent offered due to incomplete commodification of urban land. However, these accounts overlook the ways the gecekondu people were encouraged to participate in gentrification.

Drawing on Paton’s approach to gentrification as a policy that targets people as well as places (2014), I argue that the gentrification process did not lead to exclusion of the gecekondu people from the inner-city and ‘normal Turkey’. On the contrary, these socially and spatially marginalised groups were made promises of inclusion and also given the means to participate and benefit in return for their voluntary participation in the state-led gentrification projects in line with the attempts to promote obedience to the benevolent state as part of the government’s gradually more authoritarian citizenship agenda.

This chapter also demonstrated that the ways the gecekondu people were included in the process differed in Turkey due to the authoritarian form neoliberalism has taken. In addition to the promotion of consumerism and entrepreneurialism, gentrification acted as a disciplining tool in Turkey with which the state citizenship agenda was promoted. Focusing on the selectivity of criminalisation, I argued that it was used to separate the ‘innocent’ from the ‘criminal’ and state’s benevolent face was shown to the former while the latter was subjected to punitive measures. As the promotion of benevolent state- passive citizenship model trivialised and criminalised the rights-based struggles and claims, it can be said that social costs of inclusion in gentrification are no less than those of exclusion.

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Chapter 6: The Present Picture of Dikmen